A retired American who lived in Penang, Malaysia, and now has returned to the US shares his thoughts, views and opinions on a variety of subjects ranging from the ridiculous to the controversial. The contents are only limited by his imagination.

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Thursday, November 5, 2015

Do Internet Health Forums Ever Help Anyone?

For many years I have suffered from breathing problems related to a combination of Chronic sinusitis and GERD. I have even published a couple of articles on HubPages about this. The first one was called "The Scourge of Chronic Sinusitis and GERD Combination"in which I described my symptoms and what medical help I was receiving. Four years later I published another article called "What is Really Wrong With Me?" in which I shared my my thoughts and feelings of not being able to have received any help with these conditions. I really had hoped that by publishing these articles someone would comment about how they had found something to help them, if they were suffering from the same conditions.

I have seen a number of doctors here in the US and in Malaysia, who had no idea what I was talking about and even shrugged off my complaints. The only diagnoses I have gotten were either GERD or Chronic Sinusitis with associated asthma symptoms. COPD was ruled out, even though I have been prescribed with COPD medications, which did not help. I have tried every inhaler and nasal spray that is on the market, with no results. Because I could not get any answers from my doctors I began visiting numerous Health Forums related to respiratory or breathing problems. On these forums I found large numbers of people suffering from the same maladies as I have been suffering with. I have spent hours reading the accounts of their symptoms and what they have done to alleviate them. Some of them have tried the same medications that I have tried and were helped; while others were not. The consensus was that most, if not all, of these people have been suffering, sometimes for years, but have not gotten any real relief. It is very discouraging for me and I'm sure for everyone else not to be able to get some sort of relief so that we may be able to live a normal life.

What really makes me mad is that every once and a while a doctor will reply to some of the patients sharing their symptoms, telling them to contact their physician! On some of these health forums the patients actually pay for a online consultation and share the results on the forum. Once again they were told to contact their physicians. What kind of morons are these doctors that they don't listen to what is being said? For years we all have been going to our physicians and hearing the same thing over and over, before we're told to "learn to live with it" or some other asinine excuse for not knowing what is wrong!

I'm not complaining about these forums, on the contrary, I am grateful to them for the support they offer me and thousands of other people. I just can't understand that after all of the forum posts over a period of years why there has not been one single healthcare professional who has offered some consolation or other ray of hope.